Kuumba Lynx

Kuumba Lynx is an urban arts youth development organization founded in 1996 by three women: Jaquanda Villegas, Leida Garcia-Mukwacha, and Jacinda Bullie. For two decades, alongside many of Chicago’s artists, activists, educators, and youth communities, KL has honed an arts-making practice that presents, preserves, and promotes Hip Hop as a tool to reimagine and demonstrate a more just world. KL’s Program Facilitators are a collective of artists, activists, educators, and healers. Kuumba Lynx provides performances and productions, film screenings, art-making workshops and residencies, youth artist apprenticeships, community cultural events (battles, exhibitions, festivals, and poetry slams), and praxi sharing, all rooted in an indigenous culture of urban artistry and activism. KL energizes affirming spaces that challenge youth and their communities to deeply engage and listen, critically observe and react, and creatively speak with one another. Annually, KL Hip Hop Arts Programs directly support and create opportunities for approximately 1,000 participants directly and another 1,500 indirectly through free-to-public activities. KLPE (Kuumba Lynx Performance Ensemble) reaches an estimated audience of 15,000+ people.

Previously at Lyric: Stories and Songs of Chicago (2017|18)

Last updated: September 10, 2017
Photo: Michael Brosilow